Broken Things

Some things can only be rebuilt once they've been broken… Three years after the car crash that shattered her body and stole her husband and son, Maggie Oliver retreats to a secluded cabin in the Sierra Nevadas—hoping to write, to heal, and maybe to disappear. But isolation doesn't bring peace. It brings questions. Unnerving dreams. Shifting shadows. Time that slips sideways. When Maggie befriends her neighbor Zach and his imaginative daughter Mina, a fragile new bond begins to form. But when she introduces Mina to Shadowclaw—an unfinished video game her late husband designed—the line between fiction and reality begins to blur. The game seems to know things it shouldn't, guiding Maggie toward buried secrets—including the unsolved mystery of her mother-in-law's disappearance. Worse still, Maggie begins to lose time, slipping into fugue states and glimpsing a place that exists beyond the veil of the living—a realm where lost souls linger. As a malevolent force closes in, she must navigate a landscape stitched from memory and grief… or risk being lost there forever. Dark, immersive, and emotionally raw, Broken Things is a psychological ghost story about the haunting weight of the past—and the courage it takes to escape it. Will Maggie be able to navigate her way through a mysterious shadow world and lay her ghosts to rest? Awards and Accolades: Winner, 2023 Page Turner Fiction Award Winner, 2023 Page Turner Best Paranormal/Supernatural Genre Second Place, 2023 PNWA (Pacific Northwest Writers' Association) Horror/Paranormal Genre Finalist, 2023 CIBA Awards, Paranormal Genre "This book goes beyond the horror genre and the typical ghost story. It digs deep into that monster: grief, the daily-ness of loss, and how our identity reshapes itself as we heal. Through her instantly likeable protagonist, Corso shows us how to make peace with one's past and give voice to those who've had theirs stolen. I was gripped by this story and turned pages late into the night, losing myself in this mystery as it unfolded in Maggie's lakeside cabin." —Laura Munson, New York Times best-seller, author of The Wild Why, and founder of Haven Writing Retreats